Around The World Without Flying: Dubai Part 1 - A fascinating society and an amazing city

It is now 5 am local time, and we are on our way into Muscat, Oman, where we will berth this morning.

Our time in Dubai, where we arrived just after lunch two days ago, was fascinating, though I must admit exhausting, as it was very hot and humid. The humidity surprised me, given it is in a desert area, but then it is right on the sea. Anyhow, it was very misty on our first day there, so our views of Dubai from the ship and then from the 27th floor of the luxurious Burj Al Arab, a 7-star hotel, on our late afternoon trip unfortunately were quite obscure.

My impression of Dubai was of a city that has given freedom of expression to architects like no other. There were so many huge buildings of the most incredible, fantastic shapes, and everywhere more construction was going on. I have never seen so many beautiful buildings in the one place. The city is switching from oil and gas as its main income to real estate, big business and tourism. The integrated highway and railway systems were very modern and a lot of land has been and is still being reclaimed from the sea, not only to expand its already extensive port facilities but also to build luxury marinas. And of course there is an excellent airport. What with the many huge malls, hotels and apartments, extensive medical, education and other facilities, and the fact there is no tax whatsoever, this would be an ideal place for many companies to establish a base.

The story behind Dubai, which I heard from our excellent tour guide, is simply fascinating and an inspiring example of how wealth can be shared amongst the people in the most generous and constructive way. This is the story of seven oil sheiks who came together in the 1970s to establish the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Each of their families leads the seven member emirates, and they all work together for the good of their people. Only a couple of them have almost all the oil and gas reserves within their land, but they share all the income equally. Where Dubai once was a fishing village and where the majority of their population were nomads with quite short life spans, the Emirs (Sheiks) set about building up an educated and sophisticated and fair and just and constructive Arab society. And they have succeeded.

Today only about 20 % of the population are the native Arabs. When they marry, they are given a house for which they have full ownership (lovely 2-storey mansions with gardens) and even their wedding is paid for. They are given huge sums at the birth of each child, and a very generous monthly amount to encourage them to take advantage of all the shopping available. In return they are expected to go as far as they can in their education, and to care for their elderly relatives who live nearby or with them, and who receive a generous pension. In this way the family unit is encouraged to be close and strong. These Arabs are easily distinguished by their clothes - the men wearing long white garments and the women long black ones, whilst out in public. The ones I saw seemed very dignified and friendly.

The society does have an army, navy and airforce as well as police, but joining up is voluntary. I only saw a couple of police and no members of their armed forces in my time there. There are, of course strict rules, such as road rules, breaches of which are apparently swiftly dealt with. You speed - you are taken off the road, which would explain the very steady driving I saw. Apparently crime is practically non-existent.

I was assured that in this society women are treated with great respect, and have equal opportunities for education, to represent their emirate in its parliament and to do things like drive a car, something denied to Muslim women in some larger Muslim countries.

The United Arab Emirates is governed by a representative parliament of 40 members. Of these, 20 are from the seven ruling families, and the other 20 are elected from the Arab population, in proportion to the population of each emirate. Clearly they work together extremely well for the benefit of everyone. When I hear the daily world news, I cannot help but think that their model is working far better than the supposed great democracies of the world, the parliaments and political parties of which are subject to so much corruption and self-interest. The money certainly does not go to the people in nearly enough fair proportion! Imagine if it did! Only Finland seems to be working like this.

I will talk about the other 80 % of the population in my next post.

In this post I am showing photos taken at the hotel known as the Burj Al Arab, which is the ultimate in luxury, and then the Burj Khalifa fountains. I had so much looked forward to seeing the fountains, but they turned out to be a bit disappointing, in that the crowds prevented you from seeing a lot and they only played for about 3 minutes. It took ages for the bus to get a temporary park at the massive, crowded mall next to them (which has 19 million visitors a year!), and to collect us again, but I guess it was an experience, and we were able to look up at the Burj Khalifa towering above them. I believe it is the tallest building in the world.

The view up to the mezzanine floor from the hotel lobby; the blue on the right was an amazing aquarium; the water in the fountain played in perfect parabolas.